Trade Balance & Treasury Budget

$8 billion of 10 year inflation protected notes sold in a Treasury auction. The 10 year TIPS were sold at a yield of 2.409 percent.

The good news: the Trade Balance gap narrowed from January's revised record deficit of $68.6 Billion.

The bad news: February's gap of $65.7 billion is the third largest on record.

The really bad news: the trade deficit will widen in March as China reported an $11 Billion surplus AND with oil imports at $65-$70 per barrel the deficit will continue to increase over the next several months.

The really really bad news:the U.S. trade deficit in the first quarter of 2006 is well on track to be the widest quarterly shortfall ever. Does it get any better?

The record 2005 $723.6 billion U.S. trade deficit was worth around 5.8% of GDP, while the record current account gap of $805 billion was worth around 6.4% of GDP.

In all this confusion, you have to ask yourself this question: Are these percentages of GDP sustainable over the long run? Do you feel lucky?

Bad News: Treasury Budget came in at an $85.47 billion federal budget deficit in March, its highest in history for the month of March. This topped economists forecasts for a $73 billion deficit.

The good news: Receipts were $164.56 billion, up from $148.76 billion in March a year ago. And although a record for March, it was less than the February 2006 monthly deficit that was a record for any single one month period at $119.20 billion.

Really Bad News: The deficit between government income and spending was up from a $71.21 billion deficit in March 2005. At this pace, this years deficit would be at 2.8 percent of gross domestic product compared with 2.6 percent last year.

Comments

tregen said…
"Reagan proved that deficits don't matter" -famous hunter